If you’ve spent anytime at all on the internet then you’ve heard rumors, friend of a friend confirmations, and “sources” leaking that Half-Life 3 is in the works. But, is it true? Maybe. Maybe not.

Mihn Le, the creator of the famous mod turned Valve title, Counter-Strike has said a few things on Twitch.tv that has just about every news source that reports on video games talking about it. Speaking on podcast goRGNtv, Le said,

“I don’t think I can talk about that, to be honest, but I think it’s kind of public knowledge, that people know that it is being worked on. I guess I could say that I did see something that looked kinda like in the Half-Life universe. And I mean it wouldn’t surprise anyone if I said they’re doing it, they’re working on it, yeah. So to go on a limb I’d say I did see some concept art for Half-Life 3.”

Now, I’m sure many of you will read this and start squealing like pre-teens at a Beiber concert of evidence that HL3 and L4D3 are on the way. But, how many times have we heard of these rumors before? Remember the trademark filing that turned out to be false?

We all know how secretive that Valve enjoys being about the development of their titles. Mihn Le most certainly knows this and yet he let something this profound just slip out? There are far too many questions about his statement to take it at face value. The biggest red flag for me is the “I guess I could say that I did see something that looked kinda like in the Half-Life universe,” that Le mentioned, which proves absolutely nothing about any HL3 development happening. “So to go on a limb I’d say I did see some concept art for Half-Life 3.” is another. Concept art does not equal evidence of development. It just means there’s some Half-Life’esque artwork that was designed. Portal is roughly in the Half-Life universe. For all we know, the artwork he saw was for a new Portal 3 or just new posters for the Valve store. He didn’t clarify enough for us to have any real evidence.

I understand that any third installment of a game series by Valve is big news. It’s become sort of a running gag in the video game industry to see hidden messages in various game titles. But, until we get an official response from Valve in some way, nothing that is said is fact and should be looked at with the utmost scrutiny. There have been far too many false alarms to take anything that’s said as fact. That anyone would cite this as absolute proof that HL3 and L4D3 exist boggles the mind. Statements like the one Mihn Le made deserve a level of incredulity, just as any other rumor that pops up on the Internet mentioning something so highly anticipated.

Could Half-Life 3 and Left 4 Dead 3 be in development? Absolutely. If these rumors about its development and public reaction to them show, they would become immediate top-sellers in any market they launched in. But, keep in mind that it’s been so long since the last Half-life game, that meeting the level of expectation and hype may be too much of a burden for any game to bear. I’m sure Valve is aware of this, too. We simply don’t know for sure what’s going on, and shouldn’t fall victim to any news that’s not from official sources that are directly involved with the projects.

That said, we’ve reached out to Valve for comment, and we’ll update this story with any response we receive.

]]>http://www.gamefront.com/rumor-half-life-3-in-the-works-dont-be-so-sure/feed/0Do it Yourself: Steam Becoming a ‘Self-Publishing System’http://www.gamefront.com/valve-plans-to-make-steam-a-self-publishing-system/
http://www.gamefront.com/valve-plans-to-make-steam-a-self-publishing-system/#commentsWed, 05 Mar 2014 16:25:58 +0000Mike Sharkeyhttp://www.gamefront.com/?p=266064Valve is working to make Steam a place where developers can publish their own games. That’s the biggest takeaway from...

Valve is working to make Steam a place where developers can publish their own games.

That’s the biggest takeaway from the Reddit AMA Gabe Newell and a handful of other Valve devs took part in last night. Yes, the inevitable Half-Life 3, er Ricochet 2, question was asked, but Gaben had nothing new to say on the topic.

He did, however, reveal that Valve is actively working to make Steam a place where developers can self-publish, an evolution of Early Access and Greenlight. As part of that effort, Valve also wants to make it easier for average Joes and Janes to contribute their own content to the games they love. Here are the relevant Q’s from Redditors and A’s from Newell et al:

Q: Has the decision to allow publishers to have their own storefronts and manage their own “stock” gone forward, or was that just an idea being kicked around?

Valve:We realized that a store ought to be [user generated content] (not just for publishers).

Q: What improvements will we see out of Source Engine 2?

Valve:The biggest improvements will be in increasing productivity of content creation. That focus is driven by the importance we see [user generated content] having going forward. A professional developer at Valve will put up with a lot of pain that won’t work if users themselves have to create content.

Q: What is your vision for the Steam platform and PC gaming over the next ten years?

Valve:The key benefit to Steam is to shorten the length of the loop. Longer term, we see that working at the level of individual gamers, where we think of everyone as creating and publishing experience.

Q: Before Steam Greenlight was introduced, what was the process of adding a game to the Steam store?

Valve:We got bottle-necked pretty fast on tools and decision making which lead us to Greenlight, and is now leading us to make Steam a self-publishing system.

Valve’s comments follow the release of new Steamworks tools that allow developers to create and run their own Steam Sales, so it appears Steam is well on its way to becoming a self-publishing platform as we speak.

As for Newell’s specific response to the Ricochet 2 question, here’s what he had to say: “When we announced our products years in advance in the past and then were really late delivering them, it was pretty painful for both us and the community. We’d rather not repeat that.”

Gabe Newell, head honcho of Valve, is taking to Reddit to answer your questions this afternoon.

About a month ago, Gabe Newell popped up on Reddit, and strangely, was largely ignored. It seems that many people thought that he wasn’t the real deal. No surprise there. But once he got his account verified, Newell said in this thread that he would do an AMA once donations to Seattle Children’s Hospital hit $500,000. It seems they must have, as he’s taking to Reddit at 1 PM PST today.

I’m sure he’ll get a ton of questions about Valve’s games, Half-Life 3, and maybe even his knife collection. Still, I can’t help but think that in one tiny little part of his mind, Newell is trolling us all. After all, the man whose company is famously unable to release the third installment of anything is doing an AMA on 3/3. That alone should be enough to get the conspiracy theorists going.

An alleged screenshot from a confidential Valve Powerpoint presentation leaked on NeoGAF today, and the images show Left 4 Dead 3 built in Valve’s upcoming game engine, Source 2.

The supposed screenshot shows the Plantation stage from the Left 4 Dead 2 campaign Swamp Fever, but “rebuilt” in the Source 2 engine, with the new platform allowing for increased detail while still remaining true to the original level. Preview shots of other sides also point to the Plantation stage, comparing the mansion porch in Left 4 Dead 2 with the rebuilt, detail-heavy version in Left 4 Dead 3.

It’s hard to make out, but there’s also mention of a new GUI for the front end of the Source 2 engine, which will streamline the content creation, authoring, managing, and editing processes.

As the headline suggests, this is very much at rumor status for now. Talk about the future of Valve is always exciting, but take the images and news with a boulder-sized hunk of salt for now.

We’ve reached out to Valve for comment, and we’ll update if we receive a response.

Valve has no plans to encourage costumers to buy into the Steam Machine by producing exclusive games or applications for the SteamOS.

Speaking to IGN, Valve’s Greg Coomer said, “you won’t see an exclusive killer app for SteamOS from us. We’re not going to be doing that kind of thing.”

The caveat there seems to be “from us,” but Valve’s Anna Sweet explained to IGN that the company is discouraging third-party developers from these kinds of practices as well. “Whenever we talk to third-party partners, we encourage them to put their games in as many places as possible, including not on our platforms,” she said. “Because we think that customers are everywhere, and they want to put their games wherever customers are. That would go against our whole philosophy, to launch something that’s exclusive to SteamOS or Steam machines.”

Valve doesn’t believe in artificially driving customers to its platform, Coomer explained. “If it can run in both places, we don’t like to create those artificial barriers to accessing content,” he said. “We believe that, in maybe five years from now, folks will find it a quite antiquated notion that you should assume that when you change devices or platforms, that you lose all of your other games and friends. We’re hoping to unify, to get Steam to be as platform- and context-agnostic as possible. You shouldn’t have to shed that every generation, or even slightly shed it.”

Coomer added that “it would be pretty silly” if a third-party developer wanted “to limit their game to a certain platform.” He did note that small, independent studios who only have the resources to focus on one platform may inevitably make games that only run on SteamOS, “but that’s a very different thing.”

This means that we don’t have to worry about Half-Life 3 being a SteamOS-exclusive — not that that was ever a concern. Ah, Good Guy Valve, trying to unify the gaming world.

But that doesn’t mean Valve isn’t actually working on Gordon Freeman’s next chapter. Valve’s Jira database, which the studio uses for project management and bug tracking, was temporarily accessible last week, and the Internet pounced. In the database, two Half-Life 3 dev teams are listed (along with the teams working on Left 4 Dead 3 and Source 2).

This week, we talk about Half-Life 3 and whether it will ever be released. We also spend a little time wondering if it might be time to stop expecting online games to work on day one. Finally, we go over 4K PC gaming and the Battlefield 4 beta.

]]>http://www.gamefront.com/game-front-podcast-3-half-life-3-bad-game-launches-and-bf4/feed/1Battlefield 4,Features,GameFront Podcast,Half-Life 3,PC,Playstation 3,Steam Machine,Xbox 360It's time for episode #3 of the Game Front podcast! - This week, we talk about Half-Life 3 and whether it will ever be released. We also spend a little time wondering if it might be time to stop expecting online games to work on day one. Finally,It's time for episode #3 of the Game Front podcast!
This week, we talk about Half-Life 3 and whether it will ever be released. We also spend a little time wondering if it might be time to stop expecting online games to work on day one. Finally, we go over 4K PC gaming and the Battlefield 4 beta.
This week's participants include:
Mark Burnham - EIC, Game Front
@MarkBurnham
Ross Lincoln - Features Editor, Game Front
@RossALincoln
Phil Hornshaw, Deputy Editor, Game Front
@PhilHornshaw
Ben Richardson - Associate Editor, Game Front
@B_C_Richardson
Enjoy, and stay tuned for new podcasts from Game Front each week.Game Frontno52:57Two Half-Life 3 Dev Teams Spotted In Valve Databasehttp://www.gamefront.com/two-half-life-3-development-teams-spotted-in-valve-database/
http://www.gamefront.com/two-half-life-3-development-teams-spotted-in-valve-database/#commentsTue, 01 Oct 2013 23:37:56 +0000Devin Connorshttp://www.gamefront.com/?p=243899More Half-Life 3 News Because We Are All Pawns in Valve's Game

Earlier today, we reported on the Half-Life 3 trademark filing over in Europe, but that’s not enough Valve/Half-Life news for one day. NO, SIR!

There are new reports coming out of Reddit and Gematsu that two Half-Life 3 teams are in place inside of Valve Software. The teams, dubbed “Half-Life 3,” and “Half-Life 3 Core,” were listed in the now-locked-down Valve User Picker. Furthermore, at least a dozen of the listed employees are people who are also credited in Half-Life 2 (official credit list here for reference).

]]>UPDATE: Turns out that this filing was a fake after all. See more info in this post.

Breaking Bad is over, the U.S. Government is on hiatus, and everyone is now eligible for affordable health care, but none of that matters when Half-Life 3 is on the brain.

Yes, the biggest piece of vaporware this side of Duke Nukem Forever and Project Titan is back in the news. Found by the intrepid folks over on NeoGAF, Valve recently filed for a trademark on Half-Life 3 across the pond, filing the appropriate paperwork with the European Union. The paperwork was filed on September 29th with the EU’s OHIM office, and the trademark covers Half-Life 3 under two classifications: one for “Computer games software; Electronic game software; Downloadable game software via a global computer network and wireless devices; Video game software,” and another for “Provision of on-line entertainment; provision of computer and video games and computer and video game programmes from a computer database or via the Internet.”

The trademark news comes only days after Valve completed a week of non-game announcements. SteamOS is rapidly approaching, as is a bevy of hardware designed to take Steam into the living room, and a new controller is on the way, too.

Does this mean Half-Life 3 is right around the corner? Not necessarily, but at least we know Valve is thinking about the game, if not deep in the development cycle.

The main trademark paperwork is below, and you can check out the rest of it over on NeoGAF.

This morning, Mike Sharkey wrote a piece discussing what Valve might have left to reveal tomorrow in their final big announcement at 10am PT. He mentions Half-Life 3, Left 4 Dead 3, a gamepad with swappable pieces and some other input device that collects biometric feedback from the player.

Coincidentally, this morning Game Front Managing Editor Ron Whitaker and I were chatting on Twitter about what we think Valve is saving for tomorrow. That conversation went like this:

Me: So, hey, what will you break if the inaugural Source 2 game is L4D3?
Ron: I expect it to be L4D3.
Me: I do too, so I’m trying to figure out what I should break.

L4D3 seems like a smart bet, but something kept nagging at the back of my mind all day. Quite frankly, if you want to make a splash with the announcement of Source 2, you need to go big. Would Left 4 Dead 3 count as such? Maybe. But at least we allegedly know Left 4 Dead 3 is a thing, while Half-Life 3 may well be nonexistent at this point. Nearly the same amount of time has passed since Half-Life 2 Episode 2 as came between the original Half-Life and Half-Life 2 (six years), and there’s been not really a peep about it.

But there’s another possibility, one that I imagine would really send Lucas Molyneux (pictured above) into a tizzy: A Portal/Half-Life crossover event.

Remember, when last we saw Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance, they were about to exit White Forest and head out into the colder regions of the world in search of an Aperture Science research ship called the Borealis. Meanwhile, by the end of Portal 2, Chell has been forced out of the Aperture Labs and out into the world. Valve has never been clear about precisely where in the timeline the Portal games fit, but they have confirmed that Portal 2 takes place some time after the events of Half-Life 2. It wouldn’t really take any work at all to line the series up next to Gordon’s adventures upon returning from the G-man’s slow teleport.

So what would Valve be doing exactly? I would think the crossover would be three separate games, bundled together a la the Orange Box. Remember, this has to be big — One game would be about Chell and ATLAS or P-body (rebuilt in the Peer Review DLC), and one would be about Gordon and Alyx, with both featuring co-op because “Portal 2 will probably be Valve’s last game with an isolated single-player experience.” These two games could show how the stories converge, while the third could have them adventure together in a four-player experience.

OK, fine, this is speculation. But I’m calling the concept now. Half-Life and Portal will finally crossover on Steam and that team-up will come free with a Steam Machine purchase or something. This is happening. I guarantee it.

A new type of controller that melds mouse and keyboard precision with console controller functionality?

A biometric feedback device?

More hats for Team Fortress 2?

A combination of all of the above or something else entirely?

Many are expecting Valve to save its biggest Steam Universe announcement for last, and with the rather brilliant five-day unveiling format, the Valve buzz is now reverberating across the Internet. We’ll find out for sure in roughly 24 hours (1 p.m. Easter, 10 a.m. Pacific on Friday, September 27) what the third piece to the Steam-in-the-living-room puzzle is, but until then, why not engage in some good old fashioned speculation?

Over the past year, Valve has offered plenty of not-so-subtle clues about what it’s been working on, and based on information directly from Gabe Newell and crew, there are a handful of safe bets about what we’ll see tomorrow:

Source 2

Back in August 2012, the team at the Valve Time blog discovered a line of code in the Source Filmmaker script that read: Return an str with the current engine version. If key doesn’t doesn’t exist, assume ‘Source’, otherwise invalid — assume next-gen ‘Source 2′. Turned out that was just the beginning, and before long the intrepid script explorers found more than 60 references to Source 2 buried in Filmmaker.

Valve refused comment on the matter for months. Then, in November 2012 on Gabe Newell’s birthday, some fans from 4Chan paid Valve’s Bellevue, Washington HQ a visit with a gift for the almighty Gaben. Not only did Newell meet with the fans to accept the gift himself (yes, the boss of a billion dollar company took time out of his day to meet with fans), he answered nearly an hour’s worth of questions and didn’t shy away from spilling some sizable beans:

Fan: Is Valve potentially already working on a new engine? Source 2? Could or… could not be?

Gabe Newell: We’ve been working on Valve’s new engine stuff for a while, we’re probably just waiting for a game to roll it out with.

Source 2 confirmed. Now about that game Valve is waiting to roll it out with…

Left 4 Dead 3

The co-op zombie survival shooter has become one of Valve’s core franchises. After the original launched in November 2008, a surprising sequel followed just a year later. That’s warp speed in Valve’s world. It also led many to believe a third installment would follow shortly after, but it’s been five years now and still no Left 4 Dead 3. At least, not just yet.

Back in August, a simple tour of Valve HQ led one sneaky tour goer to snap a photo of a developer’s monitor, which just so happened to have a lengthy list of Valve’s open projects. That list included Left 4 Dead 3, which was also categorized as a Source 2 game. Valve refused comment and it’s possible the image was a fake. Even if it is, we know Source 2 is real, and it would seem natural the next Left 4 Dead would be a Source 2 game.

Valve’s Swiss Army Controller

A year ago, Valve published the patent for its “Video game controller having user swappable control components.” It allows the user to use two thumbsticks like a console controller, or swap out one or both thumbsticks for trackballs (and potentially other types of modular inputs). It seems like a terrific way to meld the precision of PC controls with the functionality of console controllers.

We also know that Valve was taking its new controller endeavors seriously, committing an entire team of people to the project. Led by now former employee Jeri Ellsworth, the team had reached a point where it was ready to begin beta testing Valve controller prototypes sometime this year.

Major cuts to Valve’s relatively new hardware team in February led many to believe its controller plans had been scrapped. Newell decided to address that speculation head on, telling Engadget: “No, we aren’t canceling any projects. No, we aren’t changing any priorities or projects we’ve been discussing.”

Yesterday, Valve seemed to confirm its proprietary controller, whatever form it finally takes, is coming soon. In the FAQ to the Steam Machines announcement, Valve stated:

Am I going to be using a mouse and a keyboard in the living-room?

If you want. But Steam and SteamOS work well with gamepads, too. Stay tuned, though – we have some more to say very soon on the topic of input.

A Biometric Feedback Device

Whether it’s a component of Valve’s new controller or a separate device altogether, Valve is very interested in incorporating biometric feedback into your gaming. By measuring and monitoring things like body temperature and/or heart rate, Valve hopes to create games that react to the individual player, potentially creating intensely immersive, uniquely personal experiences. Here’s what Newell told the Verge about Valve and biometrics in January:

“We think that, unlike motion input where we kind of struggled to come up with ideas, [there's potential in] biometrics.”

“Maybe the motion stuff is just failure of imagination on our part, but we’re a lot more excited about biometrics as an input method. Motion just seems to be a way of [thinking] of your body as a set of communication channels. Your hands, and your wrist muscles, and your fingers are actually your highest bandwidth – so to trying to talk to a game with your arms is essentially saying ‘oh we’re going to stop using ethernet and go back to 300 baud dial-up’. Biometrics on the other hand is essentially adding more communication bandwidth between the game and the person playing it, especially in ways the player isn’t necessarily conscious of. Biometrics gives us more visibility. Also, gaze tracking. We think gaze tracking is going to turn out to be super important.”

“I think you’ll see controllers coming from us that use a lot of biometric data.”

Half-Life 3

Unlike all of the above, there is no concrete evidence that Half-Life 3 is coming anytime soon. The only thing we have to go on is Gabe Newell making thinly veiled references to it while discussing Ricochet 2 in 2012:

“We always have this problem that when we talk about things too far in advance. The problem is, we think that the twists and turns that we’re going through would probably drive people more crazy than just being silent about it, until we can be very crisp about what’s happening next.”

That said, would there be any bigger way for Valve to get people to buy into SteamOS, Steam Machines, Source 2, and a new controller featuring biometric feedback than Half-Life 3?

Gamers want Valve to finally announce Half-Life 3 so badly, they’re seeing the iconic logo emerging from Valve’s Steam Universe glowing planet. See how it’s evolved in recent days and judge for yourself:

While it definitely looks like a logo of some sort is taking shape, it’s a safe bet it’s Valve’s Steam arm crank. Still, if you squint hard enough and cross your fingers and your toes, you just might see this emerging:

So what will Valve unveil in its third of three big Steam Universe announcements? I think we can cross Team Fortress 2 hats off the list. Based on the evidence I think it will be a combo of controller, Source 2, and Left 4 Dead 3. Fingers crossed for biometrics and Half-Life 3, but I don’t think Valve is ready to go there.

We’ll find out for sure tomorrow. In the meantime, use the comments section to chime in and let us know what you think Valve has up its sleeve.

]]>http://www.gamefront.com/valve-3/feed/6Here’s What North Korea Has to Do With Half-Life 3 (PARODY)http://www.gamefront.com/heres-what-north-korea-has-to-do-with-half-life-3-parody/
http://www.gamefront.com/heres-what-north-korea-has-to-do-with-half-life-3-parody/#commentsWed, 31 Jul 2013 17:00:54 +0000Phil Owenhttp://www.gamefront.com/?p=232009GameFaux is a recurring series on Game Front, all about fake important game journalism and parody serious commentary. About a...

GameFaux is a recurring series on Game Front, all about fake important game journalism and parody serious commentary.

About a month ago, Valve and friends kicked off a new stage of an alternate reality game that will lead us to the announcement of Half-Life 3, which is coming sooner than you might have thought. In truth, Valve boss Gabe Newell has been pulling a really elaborate con, possibly just for his own amusement as the clues he has dropped have been almost impossible to find. Almost. Phil Owen, with the assistance of computer wizard CJ Miozzi, has managed to get to the bottom of this mystery, and below you will find a handy graphic that lays out his findings. Enjoy.

]]>http://www.gamefront.com/heres-what-north-korea-has-to-do-with-half-life-3-parody/feed/1Are we This Desperate for Half-Life 3? Yes, Apparently We Arehttp://www.gamefront.com/are-we-this-desparate-for-half-life-3-yes-apparently-we-are/
http://www.gamefront.com/are-we-this-desparate-for-half-life-3-yes-apparently-we-are/#commentsSat, 29 Jun 2013 00:46:27 +0000Mark Burnhamhttp://www.gamefront.com/?p=228412Half-Life 3 is coming, just not this week.

For Half-Life 3 Believers everywhere, this week had a couple good scares. By “scares,” I mean that through very complicated, honestly brilliant leaps of logic and cryptological handiwork, the Internet tried to believe that Half-Life 3 was coming.

It’s true that prior to the announcement of Portal 2, a Portal 1 update started teasing a sequel. So when a Half-Life 2 update this week made NPCs randomly speak in Korean, it was cause To Believe. Valve even tweeted about it, seemingly pouring a little kerosene on the fire. They’re messed up in the head like that:

WARNING: The most recent HL2 update has some issues. We're working to fix this, you can pause the update for now. ???? ?? ??? ????…

The update was apparently just an error, though, one Valve fixed speedily. But can’t we still Believe? Yes, until a Valve developer noted this in the comments for the patch update: “No ARG sorry, just me mucking up.” Belief shattered.

Close though, right? I was kind of Believing for a few minutes there.

Surgeon Simulator TF2 Update = Half-Life 3

This one is a little goofier. Earlier this week, Surgeon Simulator 2013 received an update allowing players to operate on a Heavy from Team Fortress 2. As part of the update, you obtain the item shown below.

This is where the Believing got REALLY wide-eyed, and kind of awesome. Read through the Reddit thread about it. There’s some serious work being done in there. People are talking about planets, Morse code, all kinds of decoding work. Theories were varied. Half-Life 3 was a top contender for what this code was supposed to hint at, though too was the launch date of the Steam Summer Sale.

“Indeed it’s an ARG, but I’m afraid it doesn’t have anything to do with a Valve game. It’s a key piece of an upcoming update to Surgeon Simulator, and the info found there is relevant to the puzzle — we just had no idea it could have been read in such a broad way to fit so many theories! Hope this helps, and sorry for the trouble.”

So what have we learned? For one thing, Valve is perhaps the greatest video game marketing entity of all time. They don’t create PR/marketing programs; they create disciples, who evangelize the mere idea of their product at the smallest sign of hope.

As Jim Sterling noted in an editorial on Game Front quite a while ago, Half-Life 3 needs to shit or get of the pot. Personally, I agree. I’d like to see all of this come to an end. I’d like to stop Believing, and start playing. It’s exhausting.

But here’s a theory. Maybe this IS Half-Life 3. Maybe we’re actually playing it, right now, by merely living our lives in rabid anticipation of it. It’s out, and has been for years now. This is the game. We’re all Freeman. Valve is just waiting for us to wake up and realize it.

UPDATE 07/01/2013: As a commenter pointed out, I neglected to include the detail that the Surgeon Simulator item included Korean writing, which logically invited a connection to the earlier botched Half-Life 2 update that changed in-game dialog to Korean. My mistake, consider this noted now.

Couple that with Valve’s tweet about the issue, which included Korean text that translated to “Prepare for unexpected results…” and you can sympathize with HL3 Believers.

Gabe Newell and filmmaker J.J. Abrams today announced a collaboration; through their respective companies, Valve and Bad Robot Productions, the two will work together on creating games and movies.

After speaking at the DICE 2013 conference in Las Vegas on the topic of “Storytelling Across Platforms: Who Benefits Most, the Audience or the Player?” the two decided to take action. Newell specifically mentioned that J.J.’s team could craft a Half-Life or Portal film, and Abrams said that Valve could help create a game with Bad Robot.

Whatever game comes out of this union, I’m sure it’ll be filled with lens flares. Let’s just hope it doesn’t delay Half-Life 3.

I love video games, but sometimes I loathe them. Because I understand the heights they can reach. That’s why it’s so frustrating when some games can’t or won’t try the ascent. Though the medium delivered much to celebrate this year — I encourage readers to vote in our Game of the Year poll — it also blundered right and left. Promises were broken. Offenses were committed. And gamers (including yours truly) were left feeling disappointed. Below, the Game Front staff chronicles some of the worst bummers.

Mass Effect 3′s Ending Retroactively Ruined The Series

Ross Lincoln

Remember just how hotly anticipated ME3 was going into 2012? For the end of what is arguably the greatest – in concept, at least – science fiction universe of the last 10 years, BioWare had made a number of promises about what players could expect. Unfortunately, very few of these were realized in anything but the most shallow way. The ending itself was particularly awful, cheap looking, morally confused and intellectual nonsense. The backlash, and BioWare’s initially ham-fisted response didn’t help matters, and now that the company has lost numerous key staff, it feels likely that the genie can’t be put back in the bottle.

I was looking forward to Mass Effect 3 like almost nothing else in 2013, and had anticipated at least a couple of wonderful months, first beating the game, then going back to the very beginning of the first Mass Effect and playing through again with different decisions. Instead? I’m now incapable of anything other than fondly remembering how much fun I used to have playing it. What a waste.

The Gaming Community’s Response to Sexism

Phil Hornshaw

The discussion of how the video gaming industry treats women, both as characters and as creative members of the community, has really come to the forefront in 2012. That’s great — some real good seems to have come out of the discussion, and light has been shone on issues that persist in employment and marketing.

But then there’s also been dark side of the whole discussion: backlash against people bringing these real situations to light.

Online abuse against women in gaming like Jennifer Hepler at BioWare, Anita Sarkeesian and her “Women and Tropes in Gaming” Kickstarter campaign, the attacks on “fake geek girls,” and a host of other examples aren’t just bad for the discussion of gender politics in this industry and community, they’re bad for humans everywhere. We’d like to see gaming become a deeper, more inclusive community, and while it seems to be the minority of people who spout about misandry and use hate and bigotry as their weapons, they’re a very vocal — and disappointing — one.